"Here's what we're gonna do," I said to the kids yesterday afternoon, and they gathered around me conspiratorially. "When I get off of work tomorrow afternoon...be ready! Because we're goin' TO THE BEACH!"
The kids smiled, then hesitated. They know that when I start sentences with "Here's what we're gonna do" and raise my hands in a grandiose style, that I'm either going to say something ridiculous like, "We're gonna go to the caves of Crystal Creek!" and dive behind the sofa, or I'm going to tell them something that we're actually going to do, but it's not that exciting, like "We're gonna go TO THE BANK!" and they all groan. So when I said that we were going to the beach, which is someplace that's not imaginary and also some place they like to go, they were confused.
"Seriously?" said Claire.
"Yeah! Why not? It'll be a Friday."
"But how long can we stay?" asked Emma.
"Til dark!" I cried.
"Til dark!" cried Christopher.
"Yay!" cried the girls, and we all did our own version of the happy dance, which makes us look spastic, but overjoyed non-the-less.
The beach at Fountainbleau State Park is not far from our new house and the kids and I have been taking advantage of this situation for the past month. It doesn't look a thing like the pictures that Michelle has from living in Hawaii for six years, but it does fit the requirements of four Louisiana natives 1) it has sand, 2) it has water, 3) it has shells, 4) it has fish that leap out of it now and again, much to our delight, 5) it has no alligators, 6) it has no oil residue. It's just lake water, and waves that don't knock us down unless a jet ski goes by.
This is a place where we can go where all four of us agree that we like it. We all don't agree on how we feel about our new house, or the new schools, or what song to listen to on the radio, or whether to eat fast food at Wendy's or McDonald's, or what movie to watch at night, or whether Emma's socks are faded black or dark blue, BUT! there are no arguments where the beach is concerned. It's a place where we can watch other families interact and realize that there are people who are more dysfunctional than us.
Like the parents who sit on the sand chugging down beer from their cooler and yell things to their children in the water.
"LOGAN!" a bikini-clad mother croaks to her son. "Stop throwin' sand at your sister, you gonna hit her in the - STOP THAT DAMN IT, I'LL DRAG YOUR BUTT.. [sound of beer chugging, then laughter as her husband snaps her bikini bottom]...RED! Red, I'ma kill ya!"
Or the well-dressed mothers and fathers who bring their toddlers in expensive swim wear, complete with swimmie shoes, beach hats with frogs on them, and sunglasses, and then they set their darlings on the sand and don't let them touch anything.
"Marcel," says a bone-thin middle aged mother, chasing her two year old as he runs away from her. "Marcel, you're going to get sand in your eyes." She turns to her husband who is speed walking behind her. "Richard, he'll get sand in his eyes for sure."
"I'M getting sand in my eyes," complains Richard, rubbing his eyes, and struggling to keep up with the chase.
I imagine that these are people who waited a long time to have Marcel and now they are getting too old to keep up with him as he skips away from them and attempts to pull off his swim trunks, which puts him at further risk of getting sand on him.
I'm just concerned that my kids will wander too far into the lake. I keep telling them not to swim out past the pier because of boats and jet skis that whiz by, but true to form, they keep testing this limit.
"Come on, Mom," Claire hollers. "THEY'RE doing it!"
She points to three teenage boys who have waded so far from the shore that they are just silhouettes, holding their beer cans up out of the water.
"Yeah, but they're stupid!" I yell, hoping that the silhouettes can hear me.
Emma shoots me a look. "MOM."
"Well, they are. Drinking and swimming is just about the dumbest thing you can do," I say.
Then we see someone do something even dumber. We see Christopher yell "karate CHOP!" and splash water at Claire. She is enraged. An enraged Claire is more dangerous than alligators and oil spills combined. She splashes him back and a hellacious dousing ensues. It only ends when one of them goes too far and gets water in the other's eye, but after some groaning and griping, they're both laughing again.
And most of the people that frequent the beach are not dumb, or at least they have the decency not to display it. There's a big teenager crowd, but that doesn't really bother me. It bothers me when I think about how fast the kids are growing up and how it feels like just a few years ago, I was chasing their toddler selves as they pulled their swimsuits off. But that's ok too. Right now they're at a fun age where we build sand castles and then destroy them, we collect shells, and float on our backs and say things like, "When is that butler going to bring us our iced tea?" when we have no butler.
Right now is good. And I can't wait until this afternoon!
